"No backupset selected to be restored" SQL Server 2012 - sql-server

Question

I have a SQL Server 2012 database with filestream enabled. However, when I backup it and try to restore it on another SQL Server 2012 instance (on another machine), I simply get this message that:
No backupset selected to be restored.
Not even a single line of more explanation. What's wrong here?
Every other database without filestream is OK and can be restored successfully. Is it something related to filestream? Should I install a hotfix or something like that.

Answer 1

I had this problem and it turned out I was trying to restore to the wrong version of SQL. If you want more information on what's going on, try restoring the database using the following SQL:
RESTORE DATABASE <YourDatabase>
FROM DISK='<the path to your backup file>\<YourDatabase>.bak'
That should give you the error message that you need to debug this.

Answer 2

My problem ended up being permissions. I'm on a dev machine and copied via Homegroup. Somehow, probably based on where I copied the file to, the permissions got messed up and Management Studio couldn't read the file. Since this is dev I just gave Everyone permissions to the bak file and could then successfully restore via the GUI.

Answer 3

When running:
RESTORE DATABASE <YourDatabase>
FROM DISK='<the path to your backup file>\<YourDatabase>.bak'
It gave me the following error:
The media family on device 'C:\NorthwindDB.bak' is incorrectly formed. SQL Server cannot process this media family. RESTORE HEADERONLY is terminating abnormally. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 3241)
Blockquote
Turns out You cannot take a DB from a Higher SQL version to a lower one, even if the compatibility level is the same on both source and destination DB.
To check the SQL version run:
Select ##Version
To see the difference, just create a DB on your source SQL server and try to do a restore from your backup file, when you do this whit SSMS, once you pick the backup file it will show some info about it as opossed to when you open it from a lower version server that will just say "no backupset selected to be restored"
So if You still need to move your data to a lower version SQL then check This.

Answer 4

Run SQL Server Management Studio as an administrator (right-click the shortcut/exe, then select "Run as Administrator"), then try to restore.

Answer 5

I thought I was not stupid enough to mix up the versions - however, I didn't realize that on my new server, a SQL Server 2005 instance was already installed from birth named SQLEXPRESS. When trying to restore my SQL Server 2008 R2 backed up database in SSMS 2012 to the SQLEXPRESS instance, the list of backup sets was empty.
Eventually I realized that the SQLEXPRESS instance on the server was not a 2012 instance, but a 2005. I disconnected and connected to the actual 2012 instance (in my case named SQLEXPRESS2012), and it (obviously) worked.

Answer 6

My problem was that my user was in the Builtin-Administrators group and no user with Sysadmin-role on SQL Server.
I just started the Management Studio as Administrator. This way it was possible to restore the database.

Answer 7

FYI: I found that when restoring, I needed to use the same (SQL User) credentials to login to SSMS. I had first tried the restore using a Windows Authentication account.

Answer 8

In my case, it was permissions and the fact that I used "Restore Files and Filegroups..." rather than simply "Restore Database ...".
That made the difference.

Answer 9

For me it's a user privilege issue.
I logged-in with sa user and its working fine.

Answer 10

For me the problem was having the .BAK file located in an encrypted folder on the server. Even with full Admin rights, I could never get SSMS to read the file. Moving the .BAK to an unencrypted folder solved my problem. Note that after moving the file you may have to also change the properties on the actual file to remove encryption (right click, properties, advanced, uncheck "encrypt contents to secure data".

Answer 11

In my case (new sql server install, newly created user) my user simply didn't have the necessary permission. I logged to the Management Studio as sa, then went to Security/Logins, right-click my username, Properties, then in the Server Roles section I checked sysadmin.

Answer 12

I had the same issue with SQL Server 2014 (Management Studio could not see the folder in which the backup file resided, when attempting to locate it for a Restore operation). This thread held the answer that solved my problem. Quote:
The SQL Server service account can be found by Start->Control
Panel->Administrative Tools->Services. Double-click on the SQL Server
service->Log On tab. You'll either be using the "Local System account"
or "This account" to define a specific account. If you are using the
Local System account, you won't be able to reference backups that are
not local to the server. If, instead, you have defined the account to
use, this is the account that needs to have access to the backup file
location. Your ability to access the backups using your personal logon
is irrelevant; it is the SQL Server account that is used, even though
you are initiating the backup. Your IT people should be able to
determine what rights are granted to each account.
Hope that helps someone.

Answer 13

For me, it was because the backup file was still open by another process. Here's the event log:
BackupDiskFile::OpenMedia: Backup device 'X:\Backups\MyDatabase\MyDatabase_backup_2014_08_22_132234_8270986.bak' failed to open. Operating system error 32(The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.).
Simply closing and reopening Sql Server Management Studio resolved it (so obviously it was ssms.exe that had the handle..)

Answer 14

In my case, it was a permissions issue.
For the Windows user, I was using did not have dbcreator role.
So I followed the below steps
Connect as sa to the SQL server
Expand Security in Object Explorer
Expand Logins
Right click on the Windows user in question
Click on Properties
Select Server Roles from Select a page options
Check dbcreator role for the user
Click OK

Answer 15

Another potential reason for this glitch appears to be Google Drive. Google Drive is compressing bak files or something, so if you want to transfer a database backup via Google Drive, it appears you must zip it first.

Answer 16

If you want to replace the existing database completely use the WITH REPLACE option:
RESTORE DATABASE <YourDatabase>
FROM DISK='<the path to your backup file>\<YourDatabase>.bak'
WITH REPLACE

Answer 17

Using SQL Server 2012 Express.
My error (from the SQL Manager - Restore Database Dialog):
No backupset selected to be restored
Further, there were no backupsets shown in the list to select.
The issue was that I had moved 1 of the 5 backup files to a folder where the SQL Server service logon user did not have permissions - I tried to add that user, but could not get the NT Service\MSSQL$SQLEXPRESS user into the security list.
I moved the file under the Documents folder for the service user, and that enabled it to read all the files I had selected - 4 at that point - and the error changed to "media set missing" - then I looked around for another backup file, and when I added that I was able to restore.
The answers in this question helped me look in the right places and work my way to a solution.

Answer 18

For me, It was a permission issue. I installed SQL server using a local user account and before joining my companies domain. Later on , I tried to restore a database using my domain account which doesn't have the permissions needed to restore SQL server databases. You need to fix the permission for your domain account and give it system admin permission on the SQL server instance you have.

Answer 19

I got the same error message even though I backup and restore on the same single machine.
The issue was from here: when backup, i had 2 item in the destination box.
So the fix would be: make sure only 1 item in the 'destination' box. Remove all the others if there are.

Answer 20

I have run into the same issue. Run SSMS as administrator then right click and do database restore. Should work.

Answer 21

I think I get the award for the most bone headed reason to get this error. In the Restore Database dialog, the database dropdown under Source is gray and I thought it was disabled. I skipped down to the database dropdown under Destination thinking it was the source and made a selection. Doing this will cause this error message to be displayed.